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Yearly Archives: 2015

I hope you’ve all had a wonderful Christmas and Boxing Day? And my thoughts go out to those affected by the terrible flooding too. We’ve been very lucky here in Norfolk, the weather has been quite mild over Christmas, but it’s been insanely windy over the last couple of days with Storm Frank starting to move in. I really hope things start to calm down across the country soon.

We’re now in that weird place between Christmas and new year, where it’s not Christmas any more, but things definitely aren’t back to normal yet. The tree is still up, most of us are still off work, except for those poor people that work in retail – I feel for you guys at this time of year, and my good self too as I work in social media. I do have a few days booked off at the beginning of January though so I can get a much needed break.

I came across this on Facebook earlier from the hilarious Hurrah for Gin blog, that I think perfectly sums up this time for most of us. I’ve got to the point now where I’m actually looking forward to dieting, and I’ll have a post all about this in the next couple of days.

So, I hope Father Christmas treated you well this year? I received some lovely gifts including a bottle of Baileys, a massive bar of Lindt chocolate, fancy perfume and a shirt, and Fred has completely overrun the house with his new toys. This year it’s been all about Super Heroes, Lego and Star Wars. I spent the whole of Christmas Day afternoon putting Fred’s new lego sets together (like nearly 5 hours) only to have him instantly destroy them. Bless my little angel…

Also, I may have treated myself to this gorgeous East West black shopper bag by Sophie Hulme, a few weeks before Christmas, as a little Crimbo present to myself. It was insanely cheap in the sale from Young British Designers, so I just couldn’t resist!

And I also picked up this cute little guy, who I’m calling Hugo 🙂

In other news, I’ve seen quite a few Twitter polls spring up recently, so I thought I’d hold my own the other day, to find out what sort of posts you guys would like to see on the blog. I was actually quite surprised with the results –

I genuinely thought beauty would come out on top, but nope, lifestyle it is! I’m always looking for feedback and constructive criticism, so please do let me know in the comments (or via twitter) what you like and don’t like about the blog, I’ll be taking it all into consideration in the new year when I start planning my blog posts moving forward.

And lastly don’t forget, you can win an INSANE amount of prizes in my latest giveaway, like £1800 worth of awesome stuff. Check it out here.

I’m looking forward to moving onwards and upwards with the blog in 2016, and I wish you all a fabulous new year! xxx

Merry Christmas! I hope you’re all having a wonderful start to your Christmas day, and just to add to the merriment I’m hosting a massive surprise giveaway!

You’ve probably noticed my Advent Calendar Giveaways, which I’ve been holding every day of advent, well I thought I’d save a special extra big giveaway for Christmas day, and here it is! Look what one lucky winner will take home –

Happy Christmas Eve! The big day is almost upon us, and today is literally your absolute final chance for picking up some last minute gifts. Personally, I think you can’t go wrong with fragrance – well you can go wrong, but fragrance in itself always makes a fantastic present.

The question is though, would she prefer an oud? Or is she more floral? Or maybe fruity? Is she a fan of tuberose? (I am!) Or musk or leather? The fact is that buying fragrance is hard. Scent is such a personal thing, it’s difficult to get it right.

I love nothing more that trying out weird and wonderful perfumes, the more niche the better, I just enjoy the experience. But if you’re looking for a fail-safe fragrance this Christmas, I’ve put together three perfumes that I personally have and love. These are all off the shelf, reasonably priced and very popular. I haven’t met a person that didn’t like them –

Starting with Jean Paul Gaultier Classique, this was one of my first ‘grown up’ fragrances. I remember checking this out in store many many years ago and I was instantly captivated. It’s an intense, sensual feminine scent, yet easy to wear. Classique has top notes of rose and rum essence, heart notes of vanilla orchid and daffodil and base notes of sweet amber, sandalwood absolute, tonka bean and velvety bourbon vanilla. This is probably one of the most distinctive off-the-shelf fragrances you’ll find.

Next is Viktor & Rolf Flower Bomb, not a new fragrance by any means, but new to my personal fragrance wardrobe. I couldn’t wait to try Flowerbomb out. I’ve been using V&R’s Bonbon for a while now as my go to day to day fragrance, so I really had high hopes for Flowerbomb – and I wasn’t disappointed. Flowerbomb contains top notes of tea and bergamot, middle notes of sambac jasmine, orchid, freesia, and rose, with a base note of patchouli. It’s a beautifully soft and sweet floral scent, it’s a pretty yet sophisticated fragrance, that’s right up there with Bonbon now as one of my daily favourites.

And lastly, the newest of the bunch, Yves Saint Laurent Black Opium. I haven’t tried the original Opium fragrance, but I picked up Black Opium about a year or so ago when it first launched, and it’s just such a stunning fragrance so I wanted to include it today. Black Opiumis warm and sweet, floral and fruity yet definitely intense and glamourous. An obvious evening scent, it oozes confidence and sensuality. Black Opium has top notes of pink pepper and orange blossom, mid notes of jasmine and coffee, and base notes of vanilla, patchouli and cedarwood.

I also wanted to use this opportunity to let you know that House of Fraser have a fantastic new offer coming up. Starting midday today and ending on 3rd Jan 2016, they will be bringing you a different beauty offer every day! Starting with 10% off all Mascaras (24th – 26th December) there will be amazing new deals coming up every day, including Eye Palettes, Serums, Moisturisers and much more. Make sure you keep an eye on the site to see which deals are on!

It’s now day 24 of the TSNC Big Advent Calendar Giveaway, and today’s fabulous prize is brought to you by Templespa…

The Temple Spa ethos is to create professional spa quality products that combine our wellbeing philosophy with botanical active ingredients. We want you to feel ‘it’s okay to take timeout for you’, which is why the aim of all our products is for you to set aside some time from your busy or stressful life and have a relaxing and reviving spa experience wherever you are. Our products are made in England but everything we do is inspired by beautiful Mediterranean ingredients and style.

To win this fantastic bundle of skincare, makeup and nail products worth £150, just enter via the Rafflecopter widget below! This giveaway is open internationally, and it will run for four days only. Good luck!

(Don’t forget to check out the other amazing giveaways in my Big Advent Calendar Giveaway!)

… I should also mention that even though today is the last day of advent, it’s not actually the last day of the giveaway. Come back tomorrow morning for something very special indeed 😉

It’s Christmas Eve Eve!! I’m so excited 😀 This afternoon is reserved for tidying and cleaning the house, eating mince pies and wrapping presents… so to put off doing the cleaning, I thought I’d put together a few last minute gift ideas for you – enjoy!

Diego Dalla Palma Merry Red Christmas Gift Set – This gorgeous gift set is perfect for beauty lovers this Christmas, it contains a signature red lipstick and nail polish, with a deep black lashes booster mascara and glitter silver clutch bag – it’s also now half price at M&S!

Diry Works Vanity Bag – Dirty Works have some fabulous affordable gifts available for Christmas, and this Vanity Bag is just the right size for keeping all your beauty essentials together. It’s only £6.50 from Sainsburys and also contains a Body Wash and Body Butter too!

Kiko Cosmic Starlets Brush Set – You know how much I love Kiko products! This gorgeous Cosmic Starlets Brush Set contains four professional brushes: a Face powder brush for applying and blending powder products, a Foundation brush for applying liquid and compact foundation, a Conical eye brush for applying concealers, cream eye shadows and highlighting bases, and an Eyeliner brush for easily outlining the eyes and creating graphic make-up. Presented in a satin bag embellished with a star charm this set is ideal to give as a present (or to keep for yourself).

Kiko Cosmetics Temptress Lip Set – More Kiko! They have some gorgeous gift sets available for Christmas, and this Temptress Lip Set comes in four different shades, to suit fans of nudes, reds or pinks. The set contains a lipstick and lip pencil that comes in a stylish packaging in line with their Cosmic Starlets collection.

001 Skincare Hydro-Sensitive Replenish Duo – I’ve recently been trying this 001 Skincare set which sounded spot on for my skin type. This is one of three targeted mini sets that would make fantastic Christmas gifts for those looking to try out new skincare products that really work. Each set contains 001’s best-selling multitaskers expertly blended to regenerate cells, hydrate and boost radiance. The Hydro-Sensitive Replenish Duo includes a Rosa Damascena Essence Mist (30ml) and and Active Marine Power Concentrate (15ml) which are perfect for sensitive and dehydrated skin types. All three kits also come presented in a sparkling gold sequined clutch within a Black 001 London luxury gift box.

L’Occitane Pamplemousse Rhubarbe Tantalising Collection – One of my favourite skincare brands, L’occitane have a fantastic amount of beautiful gift sets on offer this season, and the Pamplemousse Rhubarbe Tantalising Collection is just stunning. The signature L’Occitane gift box contains a beautiful collection of products made with a grapefruit essence, blending crisp, green top notes with a sensual heart and a woody base of cedar and vetiver. This is the perfect luxury gift!

Ted Baker Mini Pen Set and Christmas Crackers – Ted Baker make some of the best gifts ever, and if you know a stationery lover, I’m sure they’d appreciate this sweet little pen set! Or maybe some luxury Christmas crackers? Each of these crackers contains a different mini 10ml TB fragrance and a nail polish.

Umbra Prisma Copper Wall Decor Set – Another recent discovery, I love the geometric shapes that Umbra come up with. This set of stunning prisma wall decors can be fixed to the wall, hung from the ceiling, or displayed on a table – and whatever you do with them, they look great! I’ll be fixing these up over the Christmas holidays, so I’ll show you what they look like on my wall early next year 🙂

I’m one of those annoying people that start getting excited about christmas really early, like in August – but on the other hand I’m also pretty disorganised when it comes to presents, and often seem to end up buying them in a panic right before the day, which is exactly what’s happened again this year… clever me!

I’ve always been a fan of Christmas, but it seems that as you get older, people say it’s not as special or exciting as it once was – and I completely disagree. Now we have Freddy, Christmas really is just the best thing ever! He’s four and a half now, and he’s SO excited. This is the first year that he really understands what’s going on, and every day for the last couple of weeks he’s been asking ‘Mummy is it Christmas yet?’, ‘Is it Christmas yet’, ‘MUMMY IS IT CHRISTMAS?’ He has been driving me slightly potty, bless him.

I always intend to write a ‘my favourite things about Winter/Christmas post’ but never seem to get around to it, so that’s exactly what I’ve done today…

1. Putting the tree and decorations up. Now I’m not one of those people that are particular about what the tree looks like – though I must admit I have a sweet little gold glittery table top tree, which is the ‘fancy’ one. But for our main tree, we have no theme or colour code, and we let Freddy choose the decs this year and decorate the tree himself. He did a fantastic job and our multi-colour tree looks amazing, I love it! (And yes that is my duvet cover drying in the background – we don’t have a tumble dryer ok!)

2. Winter walks. There’s nothing like a nice walk on a chilly winters’ afternoon to blow out the cobwebs – which is often necessary after the mass of food and drink consumption. I was intending to put a nice little photo in here but my camera is playing up (again) so I’ll have to add this at a later date. I often find it difficult to find or allow myself the time to take walks normally, as I’ve been so busy, so I’m really looking forward to getting out and about over the festive season with my family.

3. Catching up with friends and family. It seems the older we get, the harder it is to get together with friends and family. With friends all starting their own families and work shifts and life, there’s always something that gets in the way. It’s hard getting people together and arranging everyone. I love that everyone has even a bit of time off over Christmas though, and I’m really looking forward to catching up with my friends for a drink and a goss.

4. Festive food and drink. Christmas really is about the food and drink to me. I love it! This year we’re actually going out for Christmas dinner, which we’ve never done before so I’m pretty excited! I love the idea of a nice relaxing day, with no prep, no cooking, and most importantly, no washing up! 🙂

I’ve been stocking up on Christmas treats too, and as I do have a bit of a sweet tooth,this Ho Ho Cookie Gift Tin is just Christmas in a tin for me! This gorgeous selection of hand decorated cookies are just stunning to look at, as well as being tasty (I’ve tried a couple, just to make sure they’re ok, you know?) You can also have one of them personalised and include a special message on the gift tag if you wish. I can’t wait to see Freddy’s face when I show him these!

And I may have been snacking on these gorgeous Godiva Chocolates already too… this carefully selected white, milk and dark assortment of Belgian chocolates, including signature chocolates and the new winter varieties; fruity dark chocolate and raspberry, and a rich milk chocolate ‘Vanuatu’ ganache, are just SO GOOD. I’ve officially been converted to Godiva!

And while we’re on the subject of food, I’ve also been reading this Oh Come All Ye Tasteful book (again, apologies for the stock photo, I’ll update this with my own asap!) which comprises of a mixture of hilarious commentary and recipes to help you celebrate the festive period like a King! With recipes like truffled turkey, brussels sprout petit fours and reindeer nibbles this guide to the festive period is perfect for the foodie in your life. I’m going to try to make at least one of the recipes over Christmas.

5. Christmas Eve. Christmas eve is actually my favourite day of the whole holiday. I love the anticipation and the build up, which reaches it’s peak on Christmas eve. On previous years I’d usually be wrapping presents in the day time and spending the evening in the local pub with friends, these days though things are a little different. My friends and I are all a bit older with families of our own, so I’ll be staying at home playing with Fred, watching Christmassy things on TV and eating treats – and I wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂

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About the Blog

Thou Shalt Not Covet… is a blog dedicated to my obsession with beautiful things, from fashion and make up, to lifestyle and travel. I will also be including product reviews, and anything else I want to share with the world!